Boxed Up Foody
by Bluemoonalto
Summary: The Lunch Lady, her daughter Box Lunch, and a 70,000 square-foot grocery store. What could possibly go wrong? One shot.


**Boxed Up Foody**  
_by Bluemoonalto_

_Disclaimer: Danny Phantom was created by Butch Hartman. I borrow the characters with no intention of disrespect, or hope of personal gain. _

_Warning: This story contains a great deal of raw meat. Vegetarians, proceed with caution._

ooo0ooo

Halfway down aisle 5, on the left, nearly a hundred jars of peanut butter and jelly began to quiver and bounce on the shelves. A few jars of strawberry jam and raspberry preserves fell and smashed on the floor, leaving a gooey mess full of glass shards, but eventually a dozen 18-ounce jars of extra-crunchy Jif broke free of gravity and rose into the air, circling briefly near the ceiling of the Wonderama Food World before shooting through the air toward the rear of the store.

Far too fast! One after another, like a volley of high-protein machine gun fire, the jars whacked little Box Lunch on the back of her head before dropping to the ground below her feet. "Owww!" she cried, darting away and belatedly protecting her head with both hands. "Mom, that hurt!"

"There, there," the Lunch Lady cooed as she floated over to comfort her daughter, who was now hovering warily behind a freestanding sale display of Betty Crocker cake mixes. Box Lunch naturally gravitated toward groceries packed in boxes, though part of tonight's exercise in the deserted grocery store was to teach her to expand her range of favored materials to include the heavier, sturdier jars and cans. "Let Mommy make it all better," she added, gently brushing her fingers across the lump on Box Lunch's head and then applying a tender kiss.

But the girl was getting too old for such childish magic: she whined and squirmed away from her mother's touch. "I'm never going to get this!" she screamed, frustration boiling over to rage. "Never! It's just too hard!" With a wave of her hand she sent the offending jars of peanut butter hurtling into aisle 9, smashing into shelves and scattering hundreds of bottles of pain relievers, cold remedies and vitamins.

"Box Lunch!" her mother barked, in a voice that snapped the little girl out of her tantrum before she could finish laying waste to the health care aisle. "Pay attention. Those jars of peanut butter— was that what you were trying to summon?"

"Y— yes," Box Lunch muttered miserably, her head hung low.

"That's my clever little girl! Peanut butter is tasty, economical _**and**_ nutritious." The Lunch Lady beamed at her daughter. "Not to mention solid and fairly heavy. Where were you trying to put them?"

Box Lunch chewed her lip. "Uh... uh... on my shoulders, I guess. You know, like... in a couple of rows across my back?" She frowned, trying to remember her plan. "And then maybe some smaller cans lower down, like tuna or Spam or something like that—"

"Excellent!" her mother interrupted, clapping enthusiastically. "You had the right idea, Dearie, you just need to adjust your technique. You see, once you locate what you need, you need to summon it in a long, graceful curve." Even as she spoke, she extended her will to the refrigerated meat cases at the far end of the store, where a hundred pork chops (bone-in, center cut) suddenly burst through their clear plastic packaging and began to soar through the air "Not a straight line, or you're just asking for trouble."

Box Lunch's mouth hung open in awe as she watched the massive but orderly stream of flying pork, noting how the chops rose gracefully in the air before approaching her mother at an oblique angle and quickly depositing themselves in tight, neat rows across her back. She was particularly impressed by the way the bones intertwined in alternating directions, forming a rock-hard lattice on top of the thick layer of meat. Then four slabs of untrimmed spareribs crashed through the cutting-room window behind the meat case and deposited themselves in overlapping layers on her mother's chest, neck to waist.

"Just like a suit of armor," the little ghost whispered.

"Better," the Lunch Lady replied with a knowing grin. She brushed her fingers across her new ribs, and the pink flesh and glistening fat quivered slightly at her touch. "These muscles, these bones— they're part of me now. Meat makes me strong, makes me powerful, makes me... safe." And with those words, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back slightly, her pale blue aura flaring as the meat case exploded in a torrent of steaks, roasts, chops and ground patties.

Box Lunch knew enough to get out of the way. From her hiding place behind the cake mixes, she watched as a whirlwind of raw meat surrounded her mother, caressing her, covering her, building her up. Larger roasts clung to hips and shoulders, longer tenderloins intertwined to encase arms and legs, layers of steaks and chops built up her shoulders until her head completely disappeared within the rapidly expanding torso. And that's when the Lunch Lady achieved the highest state of mattermorphism— her original body irrelevant, her consciousness expanded to fill and form and animate her new body as it grew and grew and grew. Her limbs doubled in length and tripled in bulk, a pair of Virginia hams stood in for her feet, yards of bratwurst links arranged themselves to form hands that she clenched into powerful fists. As a crowning achievement, fifty pounds of ground beef, ground pork and ground turkey sculpted itself into a new head and face for the monster, complete with empty eye sockets, a vestigial nose, and a crude mouth that roared with pleasure and pride.

Once complete, the Meat Monster reached down with one greasy hand and gently lifted her tiny daughter up, up, up into the air, until they were face to ground-meat face. The enormous mouth planted a cold wet kiss on Box Lunch's cheek, leaving behind a pink, 87 lean smear. "Did you see how I did that, Dearie?" she asked in her deep, monster voice, her breath smelling strongly of raw beef.

Box Lunch nodded hesitantly.

"Do you think you can you do it, just like Mommy?"

"I— I think so."

"Why don't you just try using meat for a change? Just a little bit, I just know you'll like it! You'll be amazed at how tough and flexible it is, full of vitamins and minerals to make you grow up strong—"

The little girl ghost wriggled free and floated out of reach of her mother's nine-foot-long arms. "Mo-o-o-om!" she whined, rolling her eyes. How many times did she have to say it? Meat was smelly, meat was messy, meat came in weird shapes and odd sizes. Packaged food came in colorful boxes with clean edges and sharp corners, or smooth jars, or sturdy cans. They could be stacked neatly in orderly rows or piled in attractive pyramids. And if the label said the box contained 28 ounces of cornflakes, you could be sure that the box contained exactly 28 ounces of cornflakes— and so did every other box like it. Predictable. Precise.

She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, expanding her consciousness in a vapor-thin net that swept through the store, touching and testing and tasting the abundant variety of packaged food available to her. She ultimately focused her attention on the contents of aisle 3, a long and varied array of pastas and pasta sauces; boxes, cans and jars. Slowly she began the summoning, starting with long, thin boxes of spaghetti, linguini and lasagne. Then she called the bulkier boxes of elbow macaroni, penne, farfalle and fusilli, followed by heavy glass jars of sauce and tiny cans of mushrooms and artichoke hearts. She coaxed them into an orderly flow, soaring through the air in a graceful arc just like her mother had shown her. They were coming in quickly, smoothly, but under tight control—

Until something went very, very wrong.

A green ectoblast intercepted the incoming supply of food directly above her head, showering her with shredded cardboard and pasta. She lost her concentration and the remaining flow of groceries plummeted to the floor, glass bottles shattering on impact and splattering the cereal aisle and the bakery displays with twenty-three varieties of sauce. Startled, the Meat Monster rose up to her full height and swiped angrily at the intruder as he darted past. Box Lunch had never seen Danny Phantom before, but she knew who he was— who else would have the black skin-tight costume, the white hair, the attitude of smug superiority? She fled from the scene of battle and watched from behind the pharmacy counter.

Phantom easily evaded her mother's powerful grasp, then turned and floated just out of reach, his arms crossed over his broad chest and his long spectral tail undulating restlessly. He shook his head in amused derision as her mother flung a high-speed barrage of chicken breasts and thighs at him; he simply turned intangible and allowed the attack to pass harmlessly.

"Lunch Lady," he sighed, his voice surprisingly deep. "How can you possibly allow all this perfectly good food to go to waste?"

**"Aaarrrrrggggghhh!"** the monster replied, lumbering toward the snide specter while pelting him with hams, roasts and frozen turkeys. He took to dodging and darting away from the missiles, laughing at her efforts. Every now and then he would launch another blast, dislodging huge chunks of meat from the monster's shoulders and arms. One well-placed blast blew away the top half of the monster's face, leaving a misshapen blob and a strong whiff of cooked hamburger. The monster fell to her knees, screaming in agony and clutching at what was left of her face with both bratwurst hands.

In her hiding place behind the pharmacy counter, Box Lunch sobbed with fear and grief for her mother. She would survive the wound, of course, but there was no question she was suffering serious, traumatic pain. Phantom wasn't a mattermorph, he couldn't possibly understand— that crude, disgusting face may have been a temporary construct made of ground meat, but it was at that moment an integral part of the Lunch Lady's physical body. An injury to the meat was an injury to the _ghost_, no less painful and no less debilitating. Already the Meat Monster was beginning to lose coherence, bonds of will dissolving and leaving the meat to fall away into a massive pile of individual steaks, chops and roasts. In the middle of the carnage lay the Lunch Lady, still groaning in pain, too weak to continue the fight.

Phantom circled around the wounded ghost, eventually touching down to stand beside her, with his back to the little girl ghost still hiding behind the pharmacy counter. He shook his head and said wearily, "I'm sorry, Lunch Lady, but we've been over this a hundred times. You know I can't allow you to go around vandalizing grocery stores— not in my town."

Box Lunch couldn't see exactly what happened next, but a brilliant blue light erupted in the Phantom's hands and her mother suddenly vanished from her pyre of meat. The white-haired ghost slung something over his shoulder on a sturdy nylon strap, then rose into the air. "I know you're here somewhere, Box Lunch..."

The wise course would have been to slink away quietly, or meekly reveal herself to the man who had just defeated her mother, but something just snapped. She closed her eyes and cast her net again, this time sweeping thousands of boxes, cartons, bags, packages, bottles, pouches and jars into an overwhelming whirlwind of food. Windows smashed, displays toppled, aisle after aisle of shelving collapsed. Most of the food she hurled at the man who had hurt her mother, but she saved the contents of aisle 2 for herself.

Cans. Sweet peas, yellow corn, mixed vegetables. Cling peaches, pears, fruit cocktail. Tall thin cans of asparagus spears, short fat cans of yams. She summoned them all to herself, to her back, her shoulders, her chest, her legs and arms. They swirled around her in obedient order, snugging up to her skin and cleaving to her very self. She felt an intense, electric tingle that grew with every new piece of her new form, as her consciousness expanded to incorporate her steel muscles, steel bones, steel skin.

Danny watched with detached curiosity as little Box Lunch achieved her incarnation as a true mattermorph. The Steel Can Monster rose to her feet and reduced the pharmacy counter to splinters and glass shards with her first, tentative step. He noted that she had not bothered to form an artificial face for herself, instead choosing to leave a round gap in the front of her enormous steel-can head for her natural face to appear— just as he remembered her, so many years ago. She glowered at him with righteous rage and cried out in her tiny, piping voice:

_"BEWARE!"_

Steely determination and rage can only take a ghost so far. Unsteady on her new legs, Box Lunch only managed four steps before the Phantom casually blasted her left knee and sent her tumbling. Gritting her teeth with determination, she managed to maintain her new body's coherence; even as she fell she remained a single, giant creature of steel rather than a tiny ghost encased in thousands of separate cans. Even so, part of her left hip crumpled under her tremendous weight, sharp pain making her cry out even as she noticed the spreading pool of stewed tomatoes spurting from a score of jagged wounds. Bracing her massive metal hands against the floor she struggled to rise, but the Phantom conjured a cloud of intense cold and instantly encased her in ghostly blue ice from the chest down.

"You know, I was planning to let you go with a warning. Like, 'Go home, stay out of trouble, don't do it again,' that sort of thing." He leaned over and rapped his knuckles playfully against the side of her head. "But you really are making this difficult for me. Will you just look at this mess?"

She glanced over to her left, where a mountain of raw meat stood next to a slightly larger mountain of dented cans, smashed jars and shredded boxes. Most of the shelves in aisles 4 through 18 had collapsed and the floor was slippery with cling peaches, spaghetti sauce, frozen orange juice concentrate and jam. It was somewhat disconcerting to know that so much perfectly good food had been released from so many perfectly good containers, but she couldn't quite find it in her heart to be sorry. It was a glorious battle!

"How old are you now?" he asked. "Seven?"

"Six," she answered, raw defiance in her sweet little voice.

"Six years old," he said gravely. "Well, Miss Box Lunch, this may not make sense to you right now, but I hope you'll understand someday that I mean this as a high compliment." He gave her an encouraging smile, a friendly wink, then swung the strange device around and snared her in an icy blue beam.

She knew what it was, of course. Her parents had told her all about the man with the white hair and the black jumpsuit, about his amazing powers and especially about the scary machine that would capture a ghost no matter how much she struggled. Before she could even blink, she had been neatly extracted from her beautiful steel body and sucked into the Thermos.

It wasn't so bad, really. It was just another kind of container. Best of all, her mother was inside, waiting for her.


End file.
